Lying in the Deep

So Lying in the Deep had so many elements I love in thrillers, but my overall feeling was much more meh than wow.  You know I like fiction set in exotic new places, and I always love when our characters get cut off from everyone else, so a thriller set on a Semester at Sea-style college trip sounded amazing.  Plus, with a horrible break up, an intense ex-bestie (always one of my favorite thriller elements), and loads of new classmates, all with their own secrets and romances, trapped on the ship together, the stage is set perfectly for a backstabbing YA thriller. 

Jade has been looking forward to spending a semester at sea for years (she says this a lot, basically for each activity). At embarkation, though, she’s hurt and disappointed to see her ex-best friend, Lainey, and her ex-boyfriend,  Silas, who’s now Lainey’s boyfriend, are getting on the ship too.  

Sometimes I say vaguely that the pacing in a book was off for me, and I can’t quite put my finger on what didn’t work. Here, though, the pacing is off and I can fully articulate why: It’s because almost nothing happens in the first 50% (literally, 50% on my Kindle), it could be condensed into a couple pages. Jade gets on a boat, explains her terrible breakup, and meets her new classmates, who all have cool names and almost no backstories. Seriously. Even the ones who do have interesting personalities and backstories don’t reveal them until the second half.

I didn’t fully buy Jade’s love for her ex-boyfriend Silas (He is NOT the love of your life! He is literally just a guy! Hit him with your car! as the kids say on TikTok) but I understood why she wanted Lainey’s friendship back. 

Finally, we get to the murder spree at sea! Let’s go! That’s what I’m here for! And it was… fine? I mean, there’s an accidental stabbing, which is the worst and bloodiest and most dangerous thing ever, but also it’s cleaned up quickly and somehow the adults barely notice or question it.  There’s also a highly specific weapon and some truly complex murder plans and framing plans and really big reveals and it’s all pretty far-fetched, but in a fun way. I kind of wish the story had taken advantage of the boat setting more and developed the secondary characters more, though.  

There were a couple nods to Death on the Nile here, which I liked a lot. It’s definitely not a retelling, but if you’ve read that one, there’s a bit of foreshadowing towards the ending, too. Not the reveal or the methods, it’s a moment off the ship at the very end that felt like a moment off he ship at the very end of a certain Agatha Christie mystery.